Teenagers plead guilty to injuring woman with brick

Two teenagers accused of injuring a woman by throwing a landscaping brick from a highway overpass pleaded guilty in court Thursday afternoon.

By Stephanie TaylorStaff Writer

Two teenagers accused of injuring a woman by throwing a landscaping brick from a highway overpass pleaded guilty in court Thursday afternoon.

Jordan Price, 17, and Shane Adam Herren, 18, were granted youthful offender status, according to court documents. Details of the plea agreement and the punishments will not be made public because they were granted youthful offender status.

Price and Herren were both 16 when they threw the 5-pound brick from the Keene's Mill Road overpass of Interstate 20/59, seriously injuring Melissa Jones.

One of Jones' family members requested that the three families pray together at the conclusion of the hearing, said attorney Mary Turner, who represented Price.

"That was the most touching moment in my 25 years of practicing law," she said.

A jury trial was scheduled to begin Monday before Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court Judge Brad Almond. The hearing held Thursday was initially set for Almond to hear motions from defense attorneys to suppress evidence and statements they said were collected during illegal searches.

"We're glad for the closure for both families," Turner said.

Jones, now 41, was driving with three of her children to the birth of her first grandchild at Northport Medical Center.

She suffered from a collapsed lung, a broken sternum, dislocated shoulders and a broken right collar bone. She underwent several surgeries and medical procedures.

At a court hearing held in 2012, prosecutors presented witness statements, statements made by the teens and evidence of Internet searches conducted from Price's seized phone.

An investigator stated that a witness had seen the boys on the bridge a short time before the brick was thrown around 9 p.m. on Sept. 16, 2012. At the court hearing held shortly after the assault, the lead investigator in the case testified that Herren said during a video-taped interview that they had been hanging out at a vacant lot near the overpass and that Price picked up a brick and wondered whether it would spark if dropped on the interstate.

Homicide investigators confiscated Price's phone and found that someone had searched the questions "Are lie detectors accurate?" and "How long is a person sentence for attempted murder?" Someone also searched for a newspaper story about the incident and emailed it to one of Price's friends, according to the investigator's testimony.

A truck driver told officers that his vehicle was hit by a cinderblock thrown from the overpass just minutes before Jones' vehicle was hit. Another truck driver, Fredrick Golden, told officers he thought Jones must be having a heart attack when he saw her SUV weaving between lanes. He drove in both interstate lanes to block traffic until Jones' 14-year-old son pulled the vehicle to the side of the interstate. Golden called 911 and comforted Jones' sons, 14, 8 and 5 at the time, until assistance arrived.